10 Major Career-Making Wrestling Matches

The first-ever tag team ladder war in company history, this literally elevated the genre to new heights. New, terrifying heights.

The story was as simple as the action was unprecedented. This was a meta tale of two teams channeling their inner Icarus; flying too close to the sun to reach wrestling immortality. As both teams brawled up the ramp, the action received no reaction. They weren’t over.

As the risk level increased, so too did the volume. Christian ran up a ladder, placed diagonally, to strike Jeff Hardy with a dropkick. Edge missed Matt with a splash, colliding with steel. A smattering of applause greeted the first rounds of cannon fire. Slowly, the atmosphere evolved from apathetic to respectful. We were bang in the midst of the Attitude Era, living, ghoulishly, in a post-King Of The Ring 1998 world. As impressive and as grisly as those bumps were, they were not enough to spur the crowd into a frenzy. When Jeff dropped a leg from the top of a ladder - enough to create a highlight reel moment in 1994 - the move in 1999 could only convince fans to finally relent. They were gripped, at long last. Reinforcing the theme, Matt Hardy risked his ribcage when landing a moonsault onto a ladder under which Edge lay helpless.

"I don't know how smart that was," winced JR on commentary.

The debate rages on to this day, and this was the origin point of it. All four men sacrificed their bodies in contravention of the classic essence of pro wrestling. An otherwise complimentary JR was far from the only divided old-timer to question the logic.

As of October 7, 1999, a new generation of awestruck fans were not so split.